Nashville’s creative economy now ranks fourth nationally, a new report says, trailing only Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles. The “Creative Vitality Index” is produced by the Western States Arts Foundation. The Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission has the details.
The CVI is a statistical tool to benchmark a state or city’s creative economy through a series of income and sales indicators, including income of not-for-profit arts and humanities organizations, per capita book, music and photography store sales, per capita performing arts revenues and art gallery and individual artist sales. The creative economy continued to expand beyond the traditional arts and music sectors as jobs were added in creative areas such as fashion design, film and video editing and set and exhibit design, said Jennifer Cole, executive director of the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission.
While other cities may be experiencing a decline in their creative economy, Nashville’s continues to grow, Cole said, with 36,850 people directly employed in creative occupations in the Nashville MSA, and more than $135 million in revenue for Nashville record, music book and photography stores, joining art sales of more than $738 million in 2010.
“We possess a dynamic creative ecosystem in Nashville; one that continues to attract new investment in our community and lures talented individuals to work and live here,” she said. “Creative life is thriving in Nashville.” Nashville also ranked 4th in 2010. Here’s the 2010 Creative Vitality Index report from the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission.